The Art of Romance (23 page)

“How could you do that to Pax Bradley?” Even though she knew it was the melodramatic thing to do, Caylor planted her fists on her hips.

Sage’s mouth dropped open, and confusion flooded her eyes. “What are you talking about? I didn’t do anything to Pax—I hardly even talked to him.”

“That’s exactly what I’m talking about. You spent hours two weeks ago flirting with Pax, giving him reason to believe that you like him—and then today, you hardly give him the time of day because his better-looking younger brother happens to be there.”

The confusion left Sage’s expression, replaced by dreamy remembrance. “Spencer is good-looking, isn’t he?”

Caylor wanted to scream. How could Sage do this again? Was she truly so self-absorbed that she couldn’t see how damaging her narcissistic flirting could be?

“It’s not like I’m ever going to see Spencer again. He’s going back to Chicago this week. Anyway, I don’t see how it’s your business who I flirt with.” She picked at her fingernails as if to indicate she was totally over this conversation. “Sounds to me like you’re still mad because you think it’s my fault Bryan broke up with you.” Sage dropped her hands to her sides. “It was ten years ago, Caylor. Get over it.” With those hurtful parting words, Sage flounced down the stairs.

Caylor sank into her desk chair, stunned. How could Sage not realize it had been her fault? Bryan
told
Sage he broke up with Caylor for her. And had Sage apologized or even tried to make things right? Had she tried explaining to Bryan that she was a compulsive flirt and didn’t feel anything for him? No, of course not. In the middle of the night, she had thrown all of her stuff into her car and taken off without even leaving a note for Mama and Daddy. Leaving behind Caylor, as always, to clean up her mess.

She once again sent up a quick prayer of gratitude to God for putting Zarah and Flannery in her life. In fact…

Twenty minutes later, Caylor sent the e-mail in which she vented all of her frustrations about her sister to her two best friends. She changed back into her old jeans and ratty T-shirt and went back downstairs to burn off the rest of her frustration by helping Sassy and Mama finish packing up the kitchen.

Next morning, Caylor got up early to have breakfast with Sassy and Mama and Daddy. Sage, who was sleeping in the den, made a disgruntled appearance when their hushed conversation woke her up. Sassy toasted some waffles for her, which she was still eating when Caylor left to drive Sassy to the airport and Mama and Daddy left to drive to Atlanta, where Mama would be speaking at a conference later in the week. From the airport, Caylor drove straight to campus.

Silence rang through the corridors of Davidson Hall—just what Caylor wanted. She pulled her laptop out of her bag and set it up on her desk then started writing.

When she finally came up for air, it was fully dark outside—though a check of the clock showed her it was only 4:45 p.m. But she had gotten the first two chapters of Giovanni and Isabella’s story written. Now all she had to do was write one more chapter and get the synopsis finished—figure out what the artist’s secret was and how they would overcome it—then come up with some general ideas for at least two more similar books, and she’d send the proposal off to her agent.

At home Sage sprawled sleeping on the sofa with the TV blaring. She woke up as soon as Caylor turned it off.

“Hey, I was watching that.” Sage rubbed her eyes.

Caylor set the remote down on the end table. “Really? Tell me what was on.”

“Um…
House Hunters
?”

“Nice try, but you weren’t even on the right channel for that.” Caylor dropped into the plush leather recliner. “The moving truck will be here between eight and nine tomorrow morning. And the crew is supposed to be here around nine to start getting all the furniture moved out so they can start tearing down walls and whatever. We need to move the microwave and toaster oven out into the laundry room so we at least have those while the kitchen is torn up and unusable.”

“What about the refrigerator?”

“We need to empty it tomorrow morning, and they’ll move it out into the laundry room for us.” Of course, once they started building the new breakfast room in front of the laundry room, it wouldn’t matter if the fridge, toaster oven, and microwave were out there. They might not be able to access it anyway. “Once the cafeteria opens up next week, I’ll get you a meal card and you can come up to school to eat, since we won’t be able to eat here.”

“So am I going to have to be here all day every day when the contractors are working?” Sage asked.

“No, they have a key to let themselves in and out. So except for tomorrow when everything is getting moved out, it would probably be better if you weren’t here, because they’re going to be tearing up the entire living portion of the house.” The idea of people being in the house with no one here to watch over them bugged Caylor. But Riley Douglas had assured her when he came out last week to get the extra key that all of his subcontractors were bonded and had never posed a problem.

“What am I supposed to do?”

“The public library has computers where you can use the Internet for free. You could start looking for a job.” Caylor had fully concurred with Sassy’s list of stipulations that Sage had to abide by when living with them.

Sage rolled her eyes, but she didn’t argue.

On Tuesday morning Caylor had to go in and physically shake Sage awake to get her up to help clean everything out of the refrigerator so Riley’s guys could move it out into the laundry room. Sage took one step out of her room dressed in sweats with her long hair pulled back in a ponytail and no makeup, caught sight of the kitchen contractor, and went right back into her room and slammed the door. Fifteen minutes later, she came back out dressed in jeans and a bright green sweater with a little bit of makeup on—quite different from the person who claimed she did not care what other people thought of her appearance. She turned on all the charm for the contractor—who thought it was
fantastic
that she had been living on the West Coast for the last few years but had decided to come home to help take care of her aging grandmother.

Caylor jammed a bag of frozen green peas down into the cooler. More like Sage came home for Sassy to take care of her.

She stood and pushed the lid of the cooler hard to shut it. Unfortunately, it didn’t make much noise. “Riley, the fridge and freezer are empty, so it’s ready to go out to the laundry room.”

“Fantastic. I’ll get the guys on that right now.” He turned back to Sage and extended his right hand. “It was fantastic to meet you, Sadie.”

Caylor’s suppressed laughed came out as a snort, which she tried to hide with a cough. From the indignant look on her sister’s face, she knew she’d failed.

By ten o’clock, when Caylor left to go out to campus to work in peace and quiet, the general contractor and his crew had arrived and were already tearing the drywall off the walls to examine the underlying structure and wiring.

It was after six when she got home, and upon seeing the light on in the laundry room, she stepped in to turn it off before entering the house. Instead, she found Sage standing in front of the dryer on top of which was the toaster oven.

Sage turned and looked over her shoulder. “Hey, sis. I made supper. Honey-cheese toast.” She picked up the plastic honey bear and drizzled what looked like half the bottle over the two pieces of toast with American cheese melted on top. “And I made dessert, or salad, or whatever you want to call it.” She pointed to the two small paper bowls sitting on top of the washing machine. Each held half of a canned pear, the hole in the center filled with a glop of mayonnaise and topped with grated cheddar cheese.

Caylor laughed. “A true gourmand.”

“Don’t knock it.” Sage licked a drip of honey off the heel of her hand. “This was the meal I always made whenever I got homesick. And honey-cheese toast, ramen noodles, and dollar frozen pizzas are how I survived sometimes when money was really tight. Oh, and big five-pound bags of white potatoes.” She handed Caylor one of the plates of honey-cheese toast, and Caylor picked up one of the small bowls.

They crossed the porch to the kitchen door, and when Caylor stepped into the house, she nearly choked. The walls were gone—replaced by framed, temporary walls until they installed the new support beams.

Caylor led the way upstairs, where they sat at the kitchen table—now shoved up against the stair banister and wall in her office, leaving two sides open for them to sit at to eat.

“That contractor—Riley—he didn’t stick around for very long after you left this morning.” Sage cut her two pieces of honey-cheese toast into small squares before beginning to eat.

“No, he won’t be here all the time—he has other jobs he has to oversee as well, so he’ll be in and out throughout the whole project.” Caylor closed her eyes and took a moment to enjoy the rough texture of the toast juxtaposed to the creamy cheese and viscous honey, the contrast of the salty and the sweet on her tongue. It had been too long since she’d indulged in this childhood favorite—one of the dinners Mama would make at least a couple of times a week when her work in the oncology department at Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center left her too exhausted, mentally or physically, to cook. As soon as Caylor was old enough to understand this, she’d asked Sassy to teach her how to cook so she could help out.

“He asked about you.” Sage took a loud gulp from her cup of milk.

“Who?” Caylor dragged her mind back from the past.

“Riley Douglas. Asked if you have a boyfriend.” She swirled a bite around in the puddle of honey that had formed in the center of her plate.

“Oh?” Caylor tried to get excited, to feel some sort of thrill at the idea of a romance-cover-worthy guy acting interested in her. “What did you tell him?”

“That I didn’t think so. I offered to give him your phone number, but he said he already had it. Did he call you?”

“Just about the fact the house needs two I beams instead of one.” Hmm. If he’d been interested enough to ask Sage about her but hadn’t said anything personal to Caylor on the phone, was he genuinely interested, or had he used it as a tactic to throw Sage off her incessant flirting? Caylor finished off her honey-cheese toast and started on her pear. Another childhood favorite too long neglected.

Sage muttered something under her breath.

“What’s that?”

“Nothing.” With a slurp, Sage finished off the last bite of pear. “So are you going to be leaving me alone here all day every day?”

“I have to work, Sage—get my syllabi written, get lessons planned, homework and reading assignments written up. I can’t do that here with the construction noise.” Or Sage’s constant complaining about how she was bored, as she’d been doing the last two weeks—and that had been with Sassy, Mama, and Daddy here.

“Can I come up to school with you, then?”

Caylor turned to toss the paper plate and bowl into the kitchen trash can, which she’d also brought up here for the duration. She stood and pushed her chair in. “No, I don’t think that would be a very good idea. I really need uninterrupted quiet in which to work.” And to get that proposal finished. “As I said, go to the library—the closest one’s in Green Hills, not far from campus—and use their computers to start looking for a job.”

Sage propped her cheek on her fist and leaned over the table, her expression petulant. “Sassy told me that you could probably get me a job at Robertson.”

Caylor knew Sassy well enough to know she absolutely had
not
said that to Sage but probably suggested she ask Caylor if there were any job openings at Robertson for which she was qualified. Which would be—what? “Log on to the school’s website when you go to the library. There’s a link at the bottom of the page for job openings.”

Before Sage could work herself up into a full pout, Caylor’s phone rang. Flannery. Thank goodness. “I’ve got to take this call, Sage.” She motioned with her head toward the stairs.

Leaving her plate, bowl, and cup on the table, Sage stomped down the stairs.

“Hey, Flan.” Below her bedroom, the door to the guest room slammed.

“How’d it go with the contractors this morning?”

Caylor gave Flannery a blow-by-blow account of her day. She picked up Sage’s trash—taking the cup into the bathroom to dump the remaining milk down the sink—then went into her bedroom and sank into the embrace of her overstuffed chair-and-a-half. She actually started feeling relaxed by the time she got to Sage’s little tantrum.

“I wish we had some openings here she was somewhat qualified for. But they’re talking about not refilling the two customer service positions that came open at the end of the year.” Flannery sighed. “For someone with her limited qualifications, she’s going to have a tough time finding anything.”

“Sassy’s going to pay for her to go back to college—one class per semester at Robertson or however many hours that would cover at another school—but told her she has to get at least a part-time job for as long as she lives here.”

“How long do you think that’ll be?”

Caylor yawned, curled up, and snuggled farther down into the chair, resting her head on the high, plush arm. “I have no idea. But she’ll stay however long Sassy lets her or until she decides to run away again.”

“This could be the time that God works on her to change her, to help her grow up.”

Caylor rolled her eyes heavenward. “Yeah, He’s been beating me over the head with that thought. It’s just hard to imagine even He could get through to her.”

“Speaking as a younger child with two older siblings whose lives are hard to live up to—give her a chance. For me?”

Caylor hated it when Flannery pulled out the baby-of-the-family card. Especially when she did it in that high-pitched, innocent voice. “Oh, all right. I’ll give her a chance.”